"Wha.....?" The blonde sat up quickly, regretting it instantly as
her healing hip complained at the sudden movement.

"London, Victoria. We`re here."

Eden stared out of the coach window and saw the sign announcing that they
had, indeed, arrived at Victoria Coach Station in London.

"Sorry." She mumbled to the driver, who was holding a sweeping
brush.

"Mind the rubbish." He said, indicating a small pile of paper and
drink cans that he`d swept from beneath the seats. "I didn't realise you
were asleep back here. Did you have luggage?"

Eden shook her head. "No, I only had the one bag." She patted the
black carry-on on the seat beside her.

She thanked the driver and made her way out of the empty coach.

"Now where?" She said to herself and looked for someone to ask for
directions to the tube station.

When Tori had left her she'd felt a kind of acceptance. But as her body
healed the acceptance turned to curiosity. Cathy had refused to divulge what
she and Tori had discussed in the car park of the hospital that day, and Eden
suspected that Tori had told Cathy something that her friend felt unable to
tell her about.

Her parents had arrived the day after Tori had left. It was all too much for
Cathy. She'd had to leave Eden with her parents, unable to watch as her best
friend told lie after lie to the elderly couple about how she'd ended up in a
hospital bed with a gunshot wound. According to the blonde Tori was a friend
who had a jealous boyfriend. He'd attacked them both, and Eden was shot. Tori
had gone back to London. No mention of the fact that Eden was living at the
cottage was made. And certainly no mention was made of the true nature of the
women`s relationship.

When she was released from hospital her parents picked her up and took her
home with them. She was fussed over for a month by her mother, before moving
back to Bath and to the flat in Larkhall.

Cathy had telephoned Mark and told him of the situation. He said he'd hold
Eden's position at the Estate Agents office open until she decided what she
wanted to do. He hadn't processed her resignation anyway, and he told Cathy
that he'd make sure she was paid sick pay.

She went back to work, but her mind wasn't on the job, and, more
importantly, her heart wasn't in it.

The police had got in touch with her, and told her she would be required to
give evidence at an inquest. Neither she nor Tori were to be charged with the
death of Damien.

She'd asked Inspector Clarke for Tori`s address, but he refused each time to
give it. She'd tried the woman's mobile number, but the mechanical voice told
her it was a discontinued number. She'd heard nothing from Tori in over two
months.

One cold Sunday afternoon she ordered a taxi and went up to Summer Cottage.

She stood for a long time in the driveway, remembering the time she`d come
home unexpectedly and had been taken in almost a desperate manner, right there
in the hallway. Her eyes lifted to the bedroom window and a smile graced her
features despite the tears that streaked her cheeks.

After walking around the cottage she returned to the taxi and made her way
back to Larkhall.

Finally, she decided she had to do something. She would go to London and
find the damn woman. One way or the other Tori would explain herself. She'd
find out for herself what Cathy had refused to tell her, however painful that
might be.

She needed a closure, and until she confronted the tall woman, she wouldn't
have that.

So there she was, waiting at Victoria Underground for a tube to take her to
Chelsea. She knew Tori had put the apartment on the market, and with the way
properties were moving in London she was pretty sure that it would have sold
already.

But she'd remembered the address, and an hour later found herself standing
on the pavement outside Tori`s one-time home.

There was no answer. But the door opened and the security guard that Eden
had seen on her previous visit faced her.

"Hello." Eden said with a smile. "Jeff, isn't it?"

"Yes?" He said with a hint of suspicion.

"I was here a few months ago with Tori Conrad. I'm trying to track her
down."

"Yes?" He said again.

Eden sighed. "Do you have an address for her? For forwarding mail, that
kind of thing."

"I do, but I couldn't give it to you. More than my jobs worth.."

Eden felt her heart lurch. This was her best chance at finding Tori. She'd
failed before she'd even begun. "Oh. Well, ok, thanks."

The disappointment must have shown, because as she turned to walk away the
guard called her back. "Look Miss, I can't give you her address, but I`ll
tell you the name of the Estate Agents that sold the place. Just wait
here." The man disappeared inside.

Eden almost cried with relief, and waited on the pavement until he returned.
"Here." He said, thrusting a piece of paper into her hands.
"Didn't come from me though."

Eden reached up on tiptoe and kissed the man's cheek. "Thanks Jeff,
you're a star."

She got a taxi to the estate agents office, not trusting her reading of the
underground map. She tried to remember the name of the friend Tori had said was
dealing with the sale. She was approached by a young woman not much taller than
herself as she entered the office.

"Can I help?" Said the woman with a smile.

"I'm not sure, I'm looking for the agent who dealt with a sale for
Victoria Conrad."

A young man sitting at a nearby desk stood and approached the pair. He held
his hand out to Eden. "Richard Eastman. You must be Eden."

Eden was, for the moment speechless. "Yes, I am. I
don't..............."

He lead her to his desk and sat her down. "Would you like a
coffee?"

"Please." Said Eden, slipping her jacket off.

"Tori mentioned you. I feel I already know you." He said after
returning with a cup of coffee.

"Have you seen her?"

"Not for a week or so. Actually." He said, his brow furrowed.
"It's been over a month." He stirred the contents of his own cup, his
thoughts elsewhere momentarily.

"Do you know where she is?" Said Eden, not realising she was
holding her breath.

"Yes I do." He said. "I found her the flat she's living in
now. She's renting, though with the profit she made from the sale she could
afford just about anything we have on our books at the moment."

"I need to see her Richard." Said Eden, her hands clasping the
coffee cup tightly.

Richard nodded slightly. "I can't leave right now, I have a client
coming in in the next quarter of an hour, but I`ll call you a cab." He
seemed to think for a moment. "Eden, the woman who came in here a couple
of months ago wasn't the same Tori I know. She's changed. She's a good friend,
I love her very much. She told me about Damien, and about you. I'm sorry."

Eden was about to ask Richard what Tori had told him when the phone on his
desk rang. She waited patiently while he took the call, drinking the coffee,
which she found to be delicious.

When he'd finished he wrote an address down on a piece of paper and handed
it to her.

"This is where she's living."

Eden took the paper and stood, holding out her hand. "Thank you
Richard."

"Anytime." He said.

She wanted so badly to talk to him, but it was obvious he was pushed for
time. Clasping the address tightly in her hand she waited outside on the
pavement for the taxi to arrive.

As she sat in the back of the taxi she began to wonder what exactly it was
she was doing.

Tori had run away from her. Hadn't she? She'd left her, just when she needed
her most. And Eden had......accepted it. Even though Tori had promised she`d
never do that again.

Cathy had been furious. Furious with Tori, and almost as mad with Eden, who
seemed oblivious to her friend's anger.

"I wish you'd just get bloody angry!" She had shouted at her one
evening. "I can`t believe you`re just going to let her ruin your life like
this. You don`t go out, except to work. You don`t talk. Well, not to me anyway.
What`s going on Eddie?"

"Nothing Cath. I`m fine."

"Eddie, I know you`re not." She took her friend by the shoulders
and shook her. "Please Eddie, I`m your friend. Tell me what`s going on
with you."

In the end Cathy gave up. She left her friend to brood alone for hours in
her room.

Then one morning Eden announced she was going to London.

"I`m going to find her. One way or another I`m going to finish
this,"

"Finish this." Said Eden to herself.

"Sorry luv?" Said the cabby.

Eden smiled at his reflection in the rear view mirror. "Just thinking
out loud." She said.

The cabby dropped her at a row of three storey buildings, not unlike those
back in Bath. He`d dropped her at the end of the road, which happened to be the
wrong end.

Eden had smiled at him, even when he drove off with her tenner. Obviously he
had no change.

Colston Avenue stretched out before her, and Eden started slowly down the
street. As she did so she felt her heart rate pick up. Her doubts began. Would
Tori talk to her? Would she even let her in? Hell, would she even be there?

It was in the middle of this internal conversation that Eden spotted a
familiar face. Not the one that had haunted her dreams and her thoughts for the
last few months, but a familiar one all the same.

Debby spotted her at the same moment.

Eden froze.

She took two steps back and then turned, determined to put as much distance
as she could between her and the woman who had obviously just come from her
ex-lovers flat.

"Eden?" She heard the question in the woman`s voice as she walked
quickly away.

Eden carried on walking. 'No more.' She said to herself. 'No more.'

"Eden stop." The voice was nearer now, and she felt a gentle hand
on her arm.

Debby was breathless. "Please, just stop." She asked.

The two women faced each other for a long moment.

"You`ve come to see her?" Asked Debby.

Eden shook her head, not trusting her voice. She felt trapped, and stupid.
What was she thinking? As if Tori would just have spent the last couple of
months brooding like her. 'Dumb, dumb bloody dumb.'

"Bit of a coincidence then." Said Debby, crossing her arms and
taking a step back

"Ok." Said Debby. "I`ll start from the beginning. A friend
told me that she`d seen Tori in the Bull. I thought, `hello`. She also said she
looked like she`d been hit by a bus. Well, my curiosity got the better of me.
So I thought I`d take a butchers." Debby paused, regarding the contents of
her mug thoughtfully. "I have to be honest here and tell you that I`ve
always had the hots for Tori. It`s understandable. Right?"

Eden nodded. 'Understandable.' A voice in her head said.

"Anyway. So there she was. Sitting at the bar, drink in hand. I think
she`d had a few. She looked like shit. There were bags under her eyes, a
Band-Aid on her forehead." Debby shook her head. "But she still
looked like sex on legs to me."

Debby's eyes found the green ones opposite her. "I wanted her Eden, and
I made sure she knew."

"I don`t know who was more surprised when she followed me out of the
pub, me or her. I asked her where she was staying and she told me she didn`t
have anywhere to go. So we went back to my place. I drove her car. It was then
I noticed all the gear in the back."

"When was this?" Asked Eden.

"I think it was the same evening she drove from Bath."

"My God, she must have been exhausted."

"You`re telling me! We got back to my place and she just about
collapsed. Of course I was going to take advantage of the situation."
Debby waggled her eyebrows at Eden, who almost, almost smiled.

Realising humour was not required at that moment, Debby continued. "So
there am I. With the woman I`ve been lusting after for the past five years
spread out on my sofa like some sort of offering and what do I do?"

She waited for Eden`s guess, which wasn`t forthcoming. So she continued.

"I sit and listen to her talking until the small hours of the morning
about you."

The tea didn`t quite reach Debby's lap as the mug slipped out of Eden`s
hands and spread across the small table.

"Whoah!" Said Debby leaping to her feet. "I`ll get a
cloth."

Eden watched her as she went to the counter and returned with a rag with
which she mopped up the spillage.

Returning to Eden she placed a hand over the smaller woman`s trembling ones.
"You ok?"

Eden nodded. "I`m sorry. I saw you and assumed..................."

"Yeah, sure. What else were you to think?"

"So why were you there?"

Debby drew a deep breath. "Eden, Tori told me all about what she did.
About her mother, her father..................... Damien. She told me about the
hospital."

"Did she tell you why?"

Debby was shocked at the pain she saw reflected back at her from those green
eyes. She shook her head.

"You`re miserable, aren`t you?" She said to Eden.

Eden nodded. "It shows right?"

Debby gave a small laugh. "Well, I`ve become something of an expert in
miserable people. I`ve spent a lot of time in the last month or so with
one."

"Tori?"

"Tori." Debby confirmed. "Look Eden. What she did to you was
awful. But go up and see her. Listen to her. It seems daft for two people to be
so miserable for the same reason."

"She may not want to see me."

"Maybe. But you both need to work some stuff out."

Eden stood and walked around the table. She bent and kissed Debby on the
cheek. "Why are you doing this? I remember you from the club."

"That was jealousy. I`m sorry." Another sigh from the seated
woman. "I realise now I can`t compete with her feelings for you. I love
her very much, but she`ll never be mine."

Eden put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "You`ve been looking
after her, haven`t you." Eden sat again.

"She`d live on peanut butter sandwiches given half the chance. I did
some shopping for her and got a woman to come in a couple of times a week to
clean and do some laundry for her."

"Is she working?"

Again a shake of Debby`s head. "No, she doesn`t go out, doesn`t answer
the phone. She`s just wasting away."

Eden blinked back the tears as Debby took her hand and placed two keys on a
simple key ring into it. "I`m no nursemaid." Said Debby, swallowing
the lump that was forming in her throat.

"I`d better go." Said Eden as she stood. The two women`s eyes met.
A small nod from both heads, and then Eden left.

Eden walked up the four steps to the large black door and looked at the six
bells beside it. Flat number four bore the name Conrad.

Letting herself into the house with one of the keys, she guessed the other
was for Tori`s flat.

The brass number 4 seemed huge on the white door, and Eden stood for a while
just staring at it. She raised her hand to the bell, but didn`t ring it. Debby
had said Tori didn`t answer the phone, she probably wouldn`t answer the door
either.

No, there was no way Tori was getting out of this encounter.

She fitted the key into the lock and slipped into the flat.

The first thing she noticed was Tori`s computer. Still packed in boxes and
piled haphazardly in the hallway. Her leather jacket was draped over the top of
the boxes. Then she noticed how hot it was. It was May, and though not warm,
wasn`t cold enough to require the amount of heating in the small apartment..

She found the lounge. Nothing of Tori`s seemed to be in the room. There was
a tv and a VCR. The time on the clock of the machine told her it was a little
after noon.

She turned and left the room. Across the small hallway was a partly opened
door and Eden could just make out the soft breathing of someone inside the
room.

She pushed the door slowly open and the light from the hallway illuminated
the room. It revealed a large bed and the person who lay in it.

Tori was asleep on her stomach, her face turned away from the blonde. Her
left arm hung down alongside the bed, her knuckles grazing the floor. Her right
hand was on the pillow beside her face. She seemed to be wearing a white
tee-shirt.

Eden silently walked around the bed so that she could see the woman`s face.

She stifled a gasp.

Tori appeared to be in pain. Her brow was furrowed as if in thought and
shadows darkened her eyes.

Eden sat gently on the bed. The she slowly reached across and took Tori`s
hand.

The movement woke the sleeping woman. She stared at the joined hands next to
her face and then followed the arm until her eyes met those she`d dreamt about
for two months.

Tori`s face creased up and she pulled her hand from Eden`s grasp, curling
her body into a protective ball.

It was a natural reaction, Eden decided, as her instincts took over. She
crawled across the bed and pulled Tori into her arms. The tall woman resisted
for a brief moment, before allowing herself to be pulled into Eden`s embrace.

The blonde held her while she cried, stroking her hair and making
nonsensical shushing noises.

When the sobs finally stopped Tori once again pulled herself from Eden`s
grasp.

Both women sat with their backs against the headboard. Eden straightening
her clothes and Tori wiping her face with the front of the tee-shirt.

"Hi." Said Eden, huskily.

Tori wouldn`t trust her voice and shook her head slightly, keeping her gaze
her own shaking hands.

Tori took a deep breath. "Why......." She began, but the word came
out as a croak. She tried again. "Why did you come here?"

"I needed some questions answered."

Tori nodded.

"My turn to ask why." Said Eden softly.

Tori rested her head back against the headboard, then turned to look at the
blonde. She felt that tightness in her stomach. She knew what it was. "I`m
sorry." Said the dark woman.

"I don`t want sorry." Said Eden. "I want to know why."
She turned slightly so she could face Tori. "I want to know what made you
run again. You promised me you wouldn`t ever do that again."

Tori moved suddenly, and was standing beside the bed putting on a pair of
jeans before Eden could move. "Let`s go into the lounge." She said,
and was gone.

Eden found her curled up on the sofa, and made herself comfortable on one of
the plump armchairs.

"I thought you died." Said Tori after a long silence.

There was a hint of sarcasm in Eden`s voice when she replied. "And when
you found I wasn`t you were so thrilled you ran as fast as your legs would
carry you." She shook her head in confusion. "Tori, I really don`t
understand you."

"It wasn`t like that." Said Tori her eyes unable to meet the green
ones opposite her.

"Then tell me Tori, what `was` it like?"

Tori covered her face with her hands. "I couldn`t bear to see you
hurt." Came the pain filled, muffled voice. "And that was all I could
see happening. From the cut hand to the attempted rape. Nothing but pain."
She dropped her hands, but still couldn`t meet Eden`s gaze. "I thought
you`d be better off without me."

"So you went."

Tori nodded. "I can`t remember driving to London, but I can remember
the pain. Here." She put a hand over her heart and looked up at the
blonde. "I`ve missed you Eden."

Eden was quiet for a long moment. There was no hint of emotion as she
regarded the distraught woman. "Tori, what you did to me
was................................ unforgivable."

Tori nodded and bowed her head. "I know."

"But that was the idea, wasn`t it?" Eden watched as her lover`s
head slowly rose. "Do something so awful I would hate you. Something I
could never forgive you for." She smiled when she saw the realisation in
Tori`s eyes. "I tried to hate you Tori, but I couldn`t." She gave a
short laugh. "You have my heart." She stood and walked to the sofa
standing in front of it as Tori uncurled her long body and sat up.

Eden looked down at her lover and moved slowly forward, pulling the dark
head against her stomach. She felt Tori`s arms encircle her and then felt the
taller woman`s shoulders start to shake as she began to cry quietly.

"You can`t fool me Tori Conrad." She said.

Eden eased away from Tori and sat beside her. She took the larger hand in
her own and regarded the two hands. "Will you come home with me?"

A shake of the dark head. "I`m no good for you Eden."

"And I`m no good without you." She ducked forward trying to see
into her lover`s face. "So I`ll stay here."

"No, this is just a place to live, not a home."

"Wherever you are will be my home. Wherever you want to be."

Tori pulled her hand from Eden`s and stood. "Why are you doing this? I
don`t deserve your forgiveness. Didn`t Cathy tell you what I said?" She
was becoming exasperated now

Eden smiled up at Tori from her seat on the sofa. "No she wouldn`t. And
I guessed you said something pretty horrible." She sat back and crossed
her arms. "So you see, she sees through you too."

"You saw Debby?"

"I saw her coming out of here."

"She comes here a lot." Tori raised her chin, as if offering a
challenge.

Eden accepted the challenge.

"We had a long chat. She gave me the keys." Eden stood and moved
within arms reach of Tori "She told me that nothing happened."
Another step and their bodies were almost touching. "She wants you. But
she wants you to be happy."

Tori concentrated on keeping her hands away from the smaller woman.
"I`ll end up hurting you again."